Subscription is the new sharing: The rise of the 'membership economy' Move over, sharing. There’s a new buzzword starting to attach itself to our economy: Subscription. For a few years now, tiered subscriptions have been in vogue. Once the niche selling point of startups like Birchbox and Dollar Shave Club, the membership model is now being embraced by top sellers from Adobe to Amazon to Starbucks, allowing customers to prove their loyalty by opting in to a long-term plan. “Customers are saying, ‘I’m willing to sign up, set it and forget it in exchange for a value accrued to me on a regular basis,” says Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of The Membership Economy. The cultural significance of the subscription craze has been reported by Fortune and Forbes, each noticing that customers today demand more than simple one-time transactions. “It is a massive transformation that is changing the way organizations engage with their constituents,” notes Baxter. Translation? “It’s a fundamental change in the way we think,” he insists.
Labor 2.0: Why we shouldn’t fear the ‘sharing economy’ and the reinvention of work Uber suffered a legal blow this week when a California judge granted class action status to a lawsuit claiming the car-hailing service treats its drivers like employees, without providing the necessary benefits. Up to 160,000 Uber chauffeurs are now eligible to join the case of three drivers demanding the company pay for health insurance and expenses such as mileage. Some say a ruling against the company could doom the business model of the on-demand or “sharing” economy that Uber, Upwork and TaskRabbit represent. Whatever the outcome, it’s unlikely to reverse the most radical reinvention of work since the rise of industrialization – a massive shift toward self-employment typified by on-demand service apps and enabled by technology. Workers themselves, especially millennials, are increasingly unwilling to accept traditional roles as cogs in the corporate machinery being told what to do. Rise of the gig-based economy Uber and Lyft connect drivers to riders. Sharing into the abyss?
Szell_Trip_Sharing.pdf theconversation Uber suffered a legal blow this week when a California judge granted class action status to a lawsuit claiming the car-hailing service treats its drivers like employees, without providing the necessary benefits. Up to 160,000 Uber chauffeurs are now eligible to join the case of three drivers demanding the company pay for health insurance and expenses such as mileage. Some say a ruling against the company could doom the business model of the on-demand or “sharing” economy that Uber, Upwork and TaskRabbit represent. Whatever the outcome, it’s unlikely to reverse the most radical reinvention of work since the rise of industrialization – a massive shift toward self-employment typified by on-demand service apps and enabled by technology. That’s because it’s not a trend driven solely by these tech companies. Workers themselves, especially millennials, are increasingly unwilling to accept traditional roles as cogs in the corporate machinery being told what to do. Rise of the gig-based economy
Women Around the World » “Uberization” and “New” Economy Pose Old Dilemmas The logo of car-sharing service app Uber on a smartphone over a reserved lane for taxis in a street is seen in this photo illustration taken in Madrid on December 10, 2014. A Madrid judge has ordered U.S.-based online car booking company Uber to cease operations in Spain, the latest ban on the popular service. From New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to presidential candidates—policy makers and analysts have been talking about the “uberization” of the economy as if it were a new phenomenon. While New York City Mayor de Blasio tried (unsuccessfully) to reign in Uber’s expansion in the Big Apple this summer, the sharing economy has drawn comments more broadly from both democratic and republican presidential contenders. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently criticized Uber for not giving workers benefits, commenting: “Many Americans are making extra money renting out a spare room, designing a website … even driving their own car.
The sharing economy: sharing for money The sharing economy is disruptive. It gives more power to both sellers and buyers. And it lowers prices while raising quality. But the best thing about the sharing economy is that someone convinced us to call it the “sharing economy” instead of what it really is: the unlicensed-guy-charges-less-for-it economy. Take AirBNB. Sharing is “Hey man, me and my old lady are out of town this weekend following a Dead cover band wanna crash at my place?” Or Uber. Don’t get me wrong: I support Uber and AirBNB, both philosophically and with my wallet. And I prefer renting a house with a kitchen, a personality and a host to a hotel room with a weird bedspread, two packets of Nescafé, and crappy, overpriced WiFi. It’s just not sharing. Spotify isn’t sharing. My point isn’t that any of this is bad – except the good old fashioned stealing of which I am totally guilty. It’s not. …or licenses.
Mobile tech: building the sharing economy | Media Network I’ve outsourced my memory. I haven’t had the need or inclination to remember a phone number, aside from my own, since the discovery of speed dial on my first Nokia 3000. In the 90s I would never cycle around London without a trusty printed map and would frequently haul my 35mm SLR and Mini-VHS cameras on holidays to capture sunsets and memories. Now, my smartphone contains everything I need: contacts, messaging, photos – even apps to make 70s retro snaps and low-fi 80s VHS videos. I don’t have a problem with outsourcing everything to my phone, or indeed storing my digital life in the cloud, but I am curious to see what our continual love affair with all things mobile is doing to our values. I spoke to some of the leading proponents of what is being called “the sharing economy” about some of their revolutionary ideas, to find out where we are now and what’s coming next. “To date, we have helped pets spend almost one million nights at their own homes instead of at kennels.
A Sharing Economy Where Teachers Win Photo What kind of tunes do you think Iago, the villain in William Shakespeare’s “Othello,” would listen to if he had an iPhone? That is the kind of question that Laura Randazzo, an exuberant English teacher, often dreams up to challenge her students at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif. So, when Ms. A couple of years ago, she started posting items, priced at around $1, on the site. “For a buck, a teacher has a really good tool that she can use with any work of literature,” Ms. She clearly has a knack for understanding the kinds of classroom aids that other teachers are looking for. Speaking from her tiny home office, formerly a bedroom closet, Ms. “What started out as a hobby has turned into a business,” she said. Teachers often spend hours preparing classroom lesson plans to reinforce the material students are required to learn, and many share their best materials with colleagues. Mr. “We were not a technology company until very recently.
What The Sharing Economy Means for Authors And Content Creators style="display:inline-block;width:336px;height:280px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-8081383567175932" data-ad-slot="7855323201"> The Sharing Economy The age of the revered expert and author as the almighty, pen-wielding warrior delivering information to their passive audience when and how they choose, is over. Long over. Although we still hold the greatest respect for experts and commentators, access to their ranks is now open to any of us. Sharing, not just of goods and services through platforms like Airbnb, but of information. Some say it is a superior way of connecting and learning and offering information for sale — no more well-researched, objective (or opinionated!) What Is It? This platform is, of course, ‘Web 2.0’, a term popularised by Tim O’Reilly that takes the power what we think of as ‘the Internet’ and uses it to enhance information distribution through two-way interactions on wikis, blogs and social networks. Phew! What It Means (for you) Think again. How To Take Charge Of It
The threat Uber poses to competition and productive capitalism - Future Tense Uber and other large technology firms have received their share of both good and bad press for 'disrupting' traditional business models. But what if the game is much larger and these companies are a threat to capitalism itself? Antony Funnell reports. Public discussion about the dramatic rise of Uber is often grounded in the idea of a titanic struggle between old-fashioned expensive taxi companies and a new digital upstart. But legal academic Frank Pasquale offers a very different perspective. The problem is that it really destroys the level playing field because you'll have one tier of firms that is operating in fear of regulation and another tier of mega-firms that simply routes around it, evades it, or co-opts it via lobbying. 'But what you see in a firm like Uber is an appeal to venture capitalists—speculative capital—that wants to see massive returns via monopolisation. 'Many regulators in countries around the world are completely overwhelmed,' says Pasquale.